


Krayt Dragon in the Closet

by devilinthedetails



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, mush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29643981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Luke is scared of a krayt dragon in his closet.
Relationships: Owen Lars/Beru Whitesun
Kudos: 8





	Krayt Dragon in the Closet

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Monday Mush Mania prompt #10 at Jedi Council Forum, which is to write a story featuring a promise made, kept, or broken.

Krayt Dragon in the Closet

A hammering loud enough to be heard halfway to Coruscant interrupted Owen’s sleep, making him sit bolt upright. Adrenaline surging through him, he fumbled for the blaster he kept on his nightstand in case of a Tusken Raider attack, leveling it at the door and clutching a Beru who was groggily emerging from her dreams against his chest. 

He wondered if this was a Tusken Raider attack, although if it was he didn’t understand why the Tusken Raiders had announced their presence by pounding on the door to the room where Owen and Beru slept instead of sneaking in surreptitiously and murdering them in their sleep...But the ways of the Tusken Raiders were strange, and an eternal mystery to anyone who didn’t happen to be bloodthirsty savage. That’s what his late father had always told him, and Owen had no reason to doubt his wisdom on that score. 

“Who is it?” he shouted with enough volume to be heard through the door, glad that his voice didn’t shake. 

He half-expected the barbaric noises the Tusken Raiders called language to answer him, but instead the tremulous tone of his nephew replied, “It’s Luke.” 

“Come in, Luke.” Owen grunted as he returned his blaster to his nightstand. Whatever Luke had distrubed him and Beru in the middle of the night about had better be important, because the boy had almost given him a heart attack with that racket on the door. 

As the door opened and Luke entered, soft nimbus of blond hair illuminated by the glow of the hallway lights behind him, Owen demanded, “What’s all this fuss about? It better not be some crazy nonsense.” 

“It’s not nonsense.” Luke’s chin wobbled as he stood in the doorway. “There’s a krayt dragon in my closet and a sarlaac pit under my blankets.” 

“A krayt dragon wouldn’t be able to fit in your closet.” Owen tried to sound patient even though Luke’s childhood fears and delusions could be frustrating. As a grown man, it was hard to remember a time when irrational nightmares had clung to him and felt real. All his fears of drought, vaporator failure, and Tusken Raider attacks were completely rational, he was certain. “And if there was a sarlaac pit under your blankets, you’d be gobbled up by the sarlaac already. Go back to sleep.” 

Apparently, he hadn’t sounded patient enough because Beru elbowed him in the ribs. 

“I’m scared to go back to sleep by myself.” Tears were beginning to form in Luke’s eyes, and Owen felt like a more terrible monster than the ones his nephew imagined lurking under blankets and in closets. 

He didn’t want Luke to start crying. The boy would take at least half an hour to calm down once he began weeping, Owen knew from painful experience. 

“All right. Don’t cry.” Owen pushed himself out from under his own covers. Crossing the room, he wrapped an arm around his nephew’s small shoulders and steered him back down the hallway toward the room where Luke slept. “I’ll put you back to sleep.” 

Luke chattered in an incoherent rush about the sarlaac pit and the krayt dragon until they reached his room at the end of the corridor. As they stepped inside it, Owen spared a scowl at the posters of pilots and Podracers Beru had helped Luke plaster to the walls. They’d done it while Owen was busy repairing vaporators because they would’ve known how he’d disapprove of the posters. How he’d regard them as encouraging Luke’s dangerous daydreams of flying away from Tatooine at best and give him nightmares of death, disaster, and fiery doom at worst. 

Owen flung open Luke’s closet, flipping on the switch that controlled its light. He poked his head in the closet, turned it around to search every corner, and even put out his hand to feel through Luke’s clothes to the hard wall of the closet before announcing crisply, “There’s nothing in here but your clothes, Luke. No krayt dragon, that’s for certain.” 

“But I thought I heard one.” Luke’s eyes were wide blue oceans of confusion. 

“You were dreaming. People hear all sorts of weird noises when they’re sleeping.” Owen yanked back Luke’s blankets, revealing that there were indeed no sarlaac pits to be found there. “No sarlaac pit either, you see? Now, get back under the covers and go to sleep.” 

“Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?” Obediently, Luke climbed beneath his blankets. As he laid his head against his pillows and Owen tugged the covers snuggly to his chin, he added, “And stay with me the whole night because I’m afraid to sleep by myself tonight?” 

Wearily, Owen collapsed into the rocking chair Beru often used to cradle Luke on her lap for singing or reading before tucking him in for the night. The seat and spine of the rocking chair had cushions knitted by his industrious wife, a fact his back and bottom were immensely grateful for as he now faced the daunting prospect of sleeping in this rocking chair instead of beside Beru’s warm body. 

“I will.” Owen massaged his temples and marveled at how he was spoiling his nephew. 

“Promise?” Luke stretched out a tiny pinky finger Owen could’ve crushed if he wasn’t careful, but he was always careful with his nephew. “Pinky swear?” 

“Pinky swear.” Feeling like nine kinds of idiot, Owen entwined his pinky through his nephew’s and twisted, sealing the promise in the traditional fashion of generations of Tatooine children. 

“Cross your heart and become a Tusken if you lie?” Luke persisted. 

That was going a bit too far for Owen, who pronounced sternly, “I’ve given you my word. If a man’s honest, his word is so reliable, that it can be trusted without any extra oaths. If a man’s dishonest, no extra oaths will prevent him from being a liar. I’ve given you my word. If you believe it, go to sleep.” 

Luke blinked, looked at him for a long moment, and ultimately seemed to decide it was safer not to argue with him when he took that tone. He curled in on himself beneath his sheets in a position that could only be described as fetal and slipped his thumb in his mouth, sucking on it for comfort in a gesture Owen knew would have to be broken out of him soon. For now, it was a gesture that filled him with an odd sense of tenderness as he watched his nephew drift back into the world of dreams where everything terrifying and wonderful was possible. 

Not long after sleep swallowed his nephew, it claimed Owen as well. He slept surprisingly well in the rocking chair. Well enough to forget that he was sleeping in a rocking chair until Luke woke him in the morning by bouncing onto his aging knees that weren’t truly up for such an unanticipated assault as the orange and red rays of the rising sun began to streak through the blinds of Luke’s windows. 

“Wake up, Uncle Owen!” Luke exclaimed as his excited bouncing continued to jolt Owen’s unfortunate knees. 

“Settle down, Luke,” Owen scolded, patting at his nephew’s back in what proved to be a futile attempt at calming the eager lad. “You’ll break my knees if you aren’t careful.” 

“Aunt Beru is making panna cakes!” chirped Luke, unfazed by Owen’s chiding, and Owen could indeed smell the distinctive aroma of the little hotcakes sizzling on the robo-grill. Soon Beru would be slathering them with bantha butter, pouring sweet carbosyrup that would inevitably make Luke’s hands sticky over them, and piling them on plates for breakfast. “You don’t want to miss them!” 

“I don’t,” Owen agreed, lifting Luke from his knees and placing him on the floor. “I need to change. Go set the table, and remember the forks go on the left sides of the plates this time.”

Luke was always forgetting that. 

“I do remember that.” Luke pouted. “I just get confused about which side is right and which is left.” 

“If you get confused, ask your aunt.” Owen nudged Luke toward the door. 

Luke made it as far as the doorway before he spun around to say, “You stayed with me all night. I wasn’t sure if you would.” 

“Of course I would. I gave you my word, didn’t I?” Owen met Luke’s gaze seriously, trying to teach his nephew an important lesson about the honesty and integrity a man should have even on a planet as wild and cut-throat as Tatooine. Perhaps especially there. “A man should always keep his word once he gives it. If his word is nothing, so is he. Now, run along and set the table. I won’t tell you again.”


End file.
